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Why You Should Care About the Presidential Committee on Varsity Athletics

The 1923 Amherst Men's Football team is shrimpy as hell. Like, I probably would have been one of the heavier people on the team, and I weigh less than 150 pounds, so that's saying something.

On Thursday night, the AAS sent out an email with the cumbersome subject line “Soliciting At-Large Member for Presidential Committee on Varsity Athletics” to the entire student body, announcing the creation of a committee to study the role of varsity athletics at the College.

As written, it sounds boring as hell. People talk about varsity athletics at the College all the time: The athlete/non-athlete divide, “athlete courses,” NARPs, back room of Val and other buzz-phrases are all common vocabulary among Amherst students, so why do we need some lame, bureaucratized committee to tell us what we already know?

The “Diver Report,” which Biddy cites as the inspiration for this new committee, only gets an offhand mention, but it might be one of the most important documents written about the College in the past fifteen years. Unfortunately, Biddy didn’t see fit to make the report available—or rather, she didn’t see fit to mention the fact that you can find it buried in the College archives, if you know where to look—but we at AC Voice live to serve, so we’ve uploaded a PDF copy of the report here.

If you have the time, you should read the report in its entirety. But since you’re probably a student at Amherst College, where spare time exists only in students’ dreams (and not really even there, because you need to have time to sleep if you want to dream), I’ll just give you the highlights.

Specifically, the study found that, on average, varsity athletes performed significantly worse academically in relation to their non-varsity peers. While GPAs only differed by a letter grade (e.g. B+ vs. B), class ranks differed by 13 to 16 percent, depending on whether the sport was “high profile” (football, basketball, and hockey) or not.

Additionally, varsity athletics teams were significantly less racially and socioeconomically diverse than the rest of the student body (in 1999 only 6 percent of athletes received significant amounts of financial aid, compared with 17 percent of non-athletes). There are also some strange stats—data showed that sophomore football players spent 78 percent of their free time with other football players—along with less exotic figures that more or less support the notion of a social divide between athletes and non-athletes.

Also worthy of your concern: According to the report, in 2002, the Admissions Office expressly set aside 66 “slots” for athletic recruits, meaning that those spots are reserved for applicants on the basis of athletic merit. Sources privy to this information tell me number remains the same today. When less than 15 percent of applicants ever receive offers of admission, that’s a pretty big deal. Moreover, the report suggests that recruits, on average, have significantly lower academic credentials too: For the class of 2005, the median verbal and math SAT scores for male athletes “highly rated in the high-profile [i.e. football, basketball, hockey] sports” were 90 and 40 points, respectively, below the median scores of their male non-athlete peers. The gap was smaller for women and male athletes on non-high-profile teams, but still present. Obviously SAT scores are highly imperfect indicators of academic aptitude and intelligence, but the message is clear: the College bends its standards for athletic recruits.

Aside from issues of fairness, the authors of the report note that wide gaps in academic aptitude can lead to problems in the classroom as well.

“Such gaps in entry credentials trouble many observers. We were told by some faculty members, for example, that the quality of teaching and learning suffers when students in the class have a wide range of aptitudes. These faculty members believe that the quality of the teaching experience would be enhanced if the College enrolled a class with more uniformly high academic aptitude,” the report says.

Or, in less bureaucratic terms, large gaps in academic aptitude cause the quality of classroom discussions to suffer, as professors feel pressure to cater to the least prepared students in the class. In other words, there’s a reason why people don’t use the phrase “athlete course” as a compliment.

The main message of the report is that Amherst needed to work to restore the balance between athletics and academic life, but the evidence suggests precisely the opposite happened. For instance, between 2004 and 2014, the total number of regular faculty members (i.e. those with tenure or tenure-track appointments) at the College did not change at all, even as the size of the student body increased by over 10 percent. In contrast, the number of coaches at the College nearly doubled—from 13 to 22 full-time equivalencies. If you include administrators working in the athletics department, the number of athletics-related employees at the College has more than doubled—from 16 to 35—since the publication of the report. I don’t have numbers for things like academic performance or social division (presumably those will be gathered by this new committee), but I wouldn’t be shocked if those have either remained the same or worsened in the past 12 years.

In any case, that’s why we need this new committee. If you’re interested in applying, the deadline is 5:00pm tomorrow evening, so you better act soon.

18Comments

Amherst needs to realize that it is, first and foremost, an academic institution. It is completely idiotic that one third of our student body are on varsity sports. To make things worse, no one really cares about our sports. Our games are very poorly attended. People who do go to watch are there for their friends most of the time. I don’t think any one seriously cares how high our football team ranks in the league.

You fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of college athletics if you think that it’s justification is derived by whether anyone really “cares about our sports”. The justification for athletics being on campus are the same as any other extracurricular activity: it provides some sort of value to the participating students. Regardless, like you said, 1/3 of the student body very obviously does actually care how are sports teams do…

You are forgetting where Amherst’s bread is buttered. The preponderance of athletes is not a coincidence, it’s a result of a constant feedback loop of alumni and donations. Football gets a rich alumni, he provides connections for the football team, and more importantly, donates to the college. Then a member of the football team exploits that connection, becomes wealthy, and donates to the college and so on and so forth–the cycle repeats itself. If you need any evidence, take a look at Pratt Field. Since you are such a keen research-oriented mind, maybe take a look at the donation histories of athletes vs. non-athletes. I would conjecture that athletes, despite making up only 33% of the student body, give more total money back to the school.

Also, how is this any different than fostering a diverse student body by letting in people from underrepresented races? I don’t have evidence to back this up, so tear at me if you wish, but I’d venture to say that Blacks/Hispanics/Etc. have lower SATs upon matriculation than their white or asian peers, and often get in over their more qualified peers simply because of their race. You can bullshit this any way you want, but that’s the truth. Same is true for athletes. They bring something the college wants, so they get into Amherst.

To say that athletes alone are guilty of causing some sort of intellectual incongruence in the classroom is absolutely absurd. In my experiences, most athletes are very willing to participate and often have thoughtful contributions. Sure there are the occasional meathead athletes who won’t say a thing, but the same is true for NARPs, is it not? I’ve been in classes where NARPs don’t raise their hands the entire semester.

Editor’s Note: The final paragraph of this anonymous comment has been removed because it contained a lengthy ad-hominem attack. Please see our comment policy: “We reserve the right to delete or edit comments when they contain language or themes that the editors see as limiting to progress and thoughtful discourse.”

If you read the “Diver Report” attached in the article, you would find that athletes don’t actually donate more to the College after they graduate than do non-athletes students. When you make a claim, please try to back it up.

What I don’t understand is why you feel justified attacking the entire athletic population of Amherst when you have absolutely no idea what it is like to be a dedicated student-athlete. It’s pretty clear that you think athletes have it easy; that they are somewhat more priviledged because they can get into a good school without having perfect test scores. Yet you are entirely ignorant of the fact that these athletes have dedicated endless hours of their life to becoming better at their sport, while managing to balance very good grades (and their sanity). So god forbid not all athletes are “the perfect student”. Unless you know what it’s like to dedicate 30 hours of your week to a sport, every single week of the school year, while doing the same amount of school work as anybody else, you have no room to attack people who are trying their best to excel in more than one area. Furthermore, most of the athletes I know-yes, even the dreaded meatheads!- are dedicated students who truly want to do well. The difference is, they dont have hours on end to sit in the library. Maybe NARPS have better test scores coming into Amherst, or have a more impressive academic resume, but when they sit in a discussion class and don’t speak for the entire semester, they are not contributing ANYTHING to the academic environment at Amherst. By no means am I generalizing the behavior of non-athletes, but it’s something I’ve seen in a wide range of classes.

Attacking athletes as a whole is no different than attacking any other racial or social group. You have no idea what kind of dedication it takes to balance college sports and academics.

There’s a huge difference between attacking a racial group and attacking an extracurricular group. One is something you’re born into. One is something that is a lifestyle choice, assuming that your financial aid doesn’t depend on being a varsity athlete.

You are missing the point. No one questions that many athletes work incredibly hard. But isn’t the fact that 1/3 of Amherst students have to devote 30 hours per week to an activity that only bears marginal relevance to their role as a student itself extremely problematic?

I think you may be missing our point. Don’t you see how spending all of your time on schoolwork can be problematic. Fostering relationships is one of the most important aspects of life. The ability to build relationships is critical in life after Amherst, and sports teams provide a platform to practice and perfect this ability. Sports teams are another avenue for student athletes to become better people and grow as individuals. I believe that the coaches at Amherst are some of the best teachers here. They are all willing, and love, to get to know students outside of their teams, and people should attempt to get to know them before they pass judgements.

Another thought: I think that the author of this article probably should not have insinuated that a class having a “wide variety of aptitudes” is the same as having a lot of athletes. There’s a reason many high schools schools have honors programs–and it’s not because of athletics. I’d wager that if you’re good enough to be a college athlete, you’re a hard enough worker. The real problem is that athletics is overvalued. College athletes shouldn’t have to practice and work out 30 hours a week to stay competitive– that’s almost a full – time job. It’s more than a regular extracurricular, though, because there are cuts. Better idea: make varsity athletics less demanding and time consuming by mandate, and get trustees on board.

Thank you, Ethan, for another smart, thorough, and well-researched article. As your dispassionate presentation of information from the College’s archive CLEARLY shows, you make no attempt to “attack” any athletes or devalue any individual population at this school, though the anonymous responses above make it really, really hard not to.

In response to the comments about people being so worried that 1/3 of the school chooses to occupy 30 hours of their week with athletics: why do you care? People participate in athletics at a college level because they are truly passionate about their sport, and they want to devote their free time to improving their ability as much as possible. You can’t just tell athletes to dedicate less time to their sport…that’s not how it works when you’re at a college level and want to actually be competitive at a national level. Telling an athlete to stop working out so much is like telling a student to just stop doing so much of their homework. In both situations, one cannot perform to their highest ability. Athletes get their work done ( and do quite well) in addition to their athletic commitment, so what exactly is the problem here?

Additionally, I am one of the 66 athletes who got a so called “slot”. Apart from being an all-state athlete in high school, I also had a 3.9 GPA, high test scores, and spent a lot of time doing community service that I really cared about. Shockingly, athletics were not and still are not my only interest. Here at Amherst, I have a very high GPA and still balance a year-round commitment to my sport. Did I not deserve to get into Amherst? Point being, athletic slots aren’t just a way for amherst to sneak athletes in because they don’t deserve it. Allowing teams to have a certain number of slots means that teams are able to build a solid foundation of good athletes who might have gone to a larger school where athletics are more prevalent if they had not been given a chance to come to Amherst. Anyone that is here deserves to be here, so please stop discrediting hard work.

Of course each and every individual has their own interests, but that is not relevant here. Your argument about athletes love what they are doing does not speak to whether it is a worthwhile pursuit in the first place. Passion for a particular activity does not justify the College placing so much emphasis and resources on it and even bending admission standard for it. Insofar as no other extracurricular activity receives such preferential treatment as sports does, it is not enough for you to just say people has a right to do whatever they are interested in. You have to prove why sports is so important to the identity of this college that we should orient our admission practice so that 1/3 of our students spend 30 hours per week on sports.

In response to your second argument, your personal example does not represent the entire student athlete population. I have no doubt that you are a very intelligent and hardworking person, but statistics show that student athletes as a group perform worse academically than non-athletes. Not only that, the Diver report found that after controlling for academic credentials during admission, student athletes have lower GPA’s than non-athletes with the same academic backgrounds, presumably because sports take up so much of their time.

But why does it matter that they have slightly lower GPAs? That is a personal matter, and frankly does not have any impact on Amherst as an academic institution. When you can find proof that athletes are less successful than non-athletes in their lives post-amherst, let me know. You may think that athletics have no value, but they allow many students to form a well-rounded identity and take a well-deserved break from the stresses of school. Getting rid of athletics would be just like getting rid of any other extracurricular, and there is no way you can just expect athletics to just stop altogether. I understand your point in that they allocate many resources, but I believe that college is a place to foster all of your talents, and not solely your academic pursuits. Many athletes also work incredibly hard to be where they are today, and I just don’t see how that’s so different from working hard in academics. Athletics contribute to character building and teach one a lot about themselves, and although it is not for everyone, being a competitive athlete can be a life-altering experience. College is lot more than academics.

Since when were GPA’s and test scores indicative of overall intelligence…? I think we can agree that a person’s intelligence and diverse experiences in life (which both add a lot to a college campus) cannot be summed up in a test score, a GPA, or EVEN a hand raise in class. Would you say that your experience at Amherst has been ONLY greatly enriched by those who get A+’s on every test, paper, who talk a lot in class??… What about all of the conversations that happen outside of class? An interesting person? Their life experiences? Sharing jokes…?

Additionally, I can’t name more than five people I know who don’t try (and try their ass off might I add) in school. Just because this might not show in a test score or the like does not mean that a hard work ethic, passion, and care are not being portrayed through their work.

Have you looked up the correlation between “success” and grades in school? Maybe you should look up those statistics. Grades are not everything. WE HAVE SOULS. AND PERSONALITIES. AND STILL GOOD GRADES.

One more note, have you seen the athletic facilities we have? Look at the weight room. Sort of a piece of shit.The new and improved track and football field were donated by an athletic alum; it is not the college itself allocating these monetary resources to athletics. How exactly does this detrimentally affect you, or non-athletes in general?

I’m a non-athlete at Amherst and while I understand that you didn’t attack athletes in this article, it certainly doesn’t make the student-athletes at Amherst feel any good, Ethan. What’s the point in saying that they get lower grades and aren’t apt enough for the professors at Amherst? A large portion of the students at Amherst are athletes that dedicate time to their school work and their athletics. Spending a lot of their time doing their sport adds tremendous value to their time at Amherst. In the same way that others spend time doing Senate or Mock Trial. I’m personally very happy that I’ve been able to meet and have class with my athlete peers. You criticize the admissions process that accepted the very students that we have at Amherst now, which is, in a way, questioning whether or not they should even be here–which is why I totally understand why some of these comments are defensive and hostile. I say all the time that athletes are privileged in ways that other students aren’t and this committee should work towards making the experiences of athletes and non-athletes more equal, but to make claims about whether or not an entire group’s acceptance to Amherst is legitimate is frankly mean and unwelcoming.

Thank you for being a voice of reason, but the whole privilege issue is one that I feel sort of cancels out. Yes, athletes get into Amherst based on their physical abilities and enjoy certain little perks like guaranteed friendship, back room of val, etc. On the other hand, however, are the things that people forget about. Athletes have 3 hours per day that are simply sunk into their sport–3 hours a day where they can’t study, read or do homework. It all adds up. What if I told you that you had to give up 3 hours a day. 3 hours where you suffer physically and mentally. One more second, one more rep. It all ads up. So, if you’re a non-athlete, would you be willing to give up those 3 hours for the certain ways we are “privileged?” Would you trade those three hours to be able to sit in val with your hypothetical teammates when you could be enjoying your free time, having a hobby… hey! maybe you could even have an on-campus job and make some money! Also, like Ethan said, athletes have lower SAT scores. As a whole, we are certainly less apt than the rest of the student body; I can’t disagree with that. I did very well on the SAT, as did the rest of my sports team, so I can’t speak for everyone. But more often than not, I feel intellectually dwarfed by my peers. So what we have here is a group of people, less naturally inclined towards succeeding at schoolwork, who have 3 hours dashed from their day for at least one semester. It’s not all glory. People envision free sweatshirts, free pants–field hockey girls in their ubiquitous purple shirt/gray sweatpants/duck boots combo. Hair in a bun. The prep school casual uniform. You know what I’ve gotten for free here? Nothing. Nary a god damn sock. Not a t shirt. Not a free pass from a teacher. This is a thankless vocation. It’s just one of those things, like how black people can call each other a certain word but white people can’t. If you’re not on the inside of it, you just don’t know how the sausage is made, and you don’t want to be thrown in the grinder either. Being an athlete is not a life of privilege, but a life of sprained ankles, knees that just won’t cooperate, and spending your time in 1 of 4 ways: eating, sleeping, studying, or being in class. There is no time for any bullshitting aside from dinners at val and saturday nights. That’s why oranges get tossed into the boat and people get plastered and cause trouble.

I think it’s important to realize how much time student-atheletes dedicate to not only school but their sport too. While it is true that everyone here does a million extracurriculars and is crazy busy, being a varsity athlete means dedicating 3 hours a day to practice (not including going to the training room, meeting with coaches, etc.) along with traveling during the week or weekend for multiple games every week. This could mean having to miss important classes, take huge exams early, etc. As a student athlete, I cannot spend as much time as my other classmates on assignments and studying as I would like because my sport takes up a huge portion of my time. I am not saying this as a complaint; I know it’s my choice to participate in a sport and that this will leave me with less time for studies. My point is that if student athletes did not play their sport, they would have more time for school and would have a better overall performance. I know that if I had more time to study and actually could make office hours (most conflict with my classes or practice), then I would perform better in my classes. Despite having less time to do my work, I still managed to get straight A’s this year. So please stop stereotyping 1/3 of the student body. At Amherst we are taught to look past stereotypes. Your article makes me question what Amherst has taught you as a person.